Helmut Anheier Presents His Views on the Future of the Public Policy School

In a colloquium at the Hertie School of Governance, Helmut Anheier presented a paper on the future of public policy schools and what reforms are needed to keep them relevant.

Helmut is the Co-Director of the Dahrendorf Forum and President of the Hertie School of Governance. His paper was presented as part of a panel of experts in the intersection between academia and policy. They discussed the threat of a populist backlash against evidence-based policy-making, the perception that schools are too embedded in the scholarly world, and the defining qualities of public policy schools.

Helmut suggested five reforms that will keep public policy schools relevant in the future:

Bring political philosophy into the curriculum to compensate for the normative vacuum and lack of vision;

Emphasise stewardship of—and leadership for—the public good;

Include business and civil society to better understand governance problems, student interests, and career patterns;

Make executive education a core activity rather than a mere extension; and

Bring opposing views and their publics together, especially in an environment of increasing polarisation among societal actors.

The paper and the colloquium were presented as the capstone of Helmut’s decade-long tenure as President of the Hertie School. This autumn he will pass the presidency to Henrik Enderlein, a professor of political economy at the Hertie School.

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The Dahrendorf Forum is a major research and policy-engagement network that brings together academics and practitioners to critically engage with the challenges facing Europe. The current research cycle interrogates relationships between EU and non-EU countries, the implications of Brexit, the migration crisis and populist movements.